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JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON 



AN ADDRESS 

DELIVERED BEFORE 

THE ASSOCIATION OF EX-CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS AND 
SAILORS OF V/ASHINGTON, D. C, 

—BY— 

LEIGH ROBINSON, 
MAY 12, 1891, 

AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE HELD IN 

MT. VERNON M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH, 

AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE OCCASION- 



Published by the Association, 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 
R. O. POLKINHORN, PRINTER, 

1S91. 




JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON 

AN ADDRESS 

DKLIYERED BEFORK 

THE ASSOCIATION OF EX-CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS AND 
SAILORS OF V/ASHINGTON, D. C, 



LEIGH ROBINSON, 
MAY 12, 1891, 

AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE HELD IN 

MT. YERNON M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH, 

AND THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE OCCASION- 



Putolished by the Association 



WASHINGTON, D. C; 

R. O. POI^KINHORN, PRINTER, 
1891. 



Gift 
m. HUTCHESON 

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I N T R O D I C T O R Y 



The Association of ex-Confederate soldiers and 
sailors of Washington, T). C, met in Mount Yernon 
Place M. E. Church on May 12th. 1891, at 8 p. m. 
A large number of the friends of the association and 
citizens of Washington and Alexandria were pres- 
ent. Gen. Eppa Hunton presided. The proceed- 
ings were opened with prayer by Rev. J. F. Wight- 
man, D. D. 

PRAYER. 

"0 Lord, thou wast our father^ s God, and thou 
art our God. We invoke thy presence and thy bene-- 
diction. Thou art the righteous disposer of human 
affairs, and we meekly bow to thy sovereign will. 
Thy finger has marked the boundary of all lands, 
and we receive our land from Thee; a land flowing 
with milk and honey. We give Thee humble thanks 
for the endurement of our civil and religious liber- 
ties, for our laws, our homes, our institutions of 
benevolence, our schools of learning, and for all the 
benefits of the means of grace. We give thanks to 
Thee for the gift of good and great men who have 
directed the affairs of our people, alike in times of 
peace and amid the troubles of war. AVe are un- 
worthy, O Lord, of these manifold blessings, and we 
beseech Thee pardon the transgressions of our people 
for the sake of thy Son. Thou hast most graciously 
l^romised to honor the people that honor Thee; be 
pleased in thy tender mercy to look upon thy servant, 
the President of these United States, and upon all 



who are empowered to make our laws and to uphold 
the majesty of government, that we may live a quiet 
and peaceable life in all godliness. We beseach 
Thee grant to our people remunerative labor, screen 
them from the disasters of life, protect their morals, 
quiet all civil dissensions, sujopress all evils, bless 
our children, and grant to our homes peace and 
prosperity, thatthisgreat commonwealth may glorify 
that name in the virtues and valor of good citizens. 
Would it please Thee to unite all sections of this 
country in brotherly concord, that Ephraim may no 
longer envy Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim. Hasten 
the day when from the North to the South, and from 
the East to the West, our mountains shall nod in 
homage to Thee, and our cities shall clasp their 
hands in praising the name of the Lord. Overrule 
for good, we meekly beseach Thee, all national 
trouble, the sickness of our people, and the calami 
ties of war, that the discipline of thy providence 
may make us wiser and better. Grant, we pray 
Thee, that the heroic deeds and noble virtues of our 
great soldiers may only inspire us to cherish the 
liberty and defend the land that Thou hast given 
us. We render thanks to Thee for the honored name 
of the Christian soldier whose worth we commemo- 
rate on this memorial evening. Be Thou the Father 
of his family, and the Guardian of all his comrades 
in arms. Hasten the day, O Lord, when all officers 
in the field, and all our armies, both upon the land 
and the sea, shall light the good light of faith, and 
make a holy surrender to the great Captain of our 
salvation. Would it please Thee to inspire Thy 
servant who shall speak to us on this memorial oc- 
<;asion, and so touch his lips with the generous coal 
of Thy grace, that he may set forth for Thy glory 
those virtues of the fallen hero, that may incite in us 
true patriotism and fidelity to the God of our fathers. 
Thou hast said, -Blessed is the nation whose God is 
the Lord, and the people whom he hath chosen for 
his own inheritance.' The Lord our God be with 
us as he was with our fathers. Let him not leave 



5 



us nor forsake us. Grant this, we beseech Thee, 
through the name and mediation of our Lord, Jesus 
Christ. Amen." 



The Chant, "Abide with Me," was then rendered 
b}^ a quartet of the Church Choir. 



The following verses of a Union Soldier, were, by 
request, read by Father W. R. Cowaedin, of St. 
Aloysius Chuch, who prefaced the reading with these 
words of explanation : 

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Confederate 
Veterans ; coming, as they do, from one who fought 
in the Union Army against hira, whose memory we 
are here to honor, the verses, I am about to read, 
seem to be an answer to the prayer. Just offered, for 
peace and union in this dear land. They are writ- 
ten by Mr. C. E. Mortox, a soldier of the Mexican 
War, who served there under General Johnston, by 
whoni he was promoted, on the field of battle at 
Chapultepec, for gallantry. He sends the verses with 
the request that they be read here to-night, as a 
tribute to the memory of one he held in high esteem. 
The sentiment of the verses is beautiful, and in 
paying just tribute to three illustrious heroes of 
the Confederacy, Johnston, Jackson and Lee — he 
rises above all sectional hatred and shows a mag- 
nanimity of soul becoming a great man. 



JOSEPH K. JOHNSTON, 



W'e mourn not gallant JohnstOxX dead, 
For lives like his well spent, well sped. 

Are not fit themes for grief ; 
He leaves a record proud and high : 
As he did heroes live and die, 

Be life prolonged, or brief. 

His star arose that far-off day, 
When, bleeding, almost dead, he lay 

Where Cerro Gordo frowns, 
AVhere his reconnaisance preserved 
So many lives, that it deserved 

The mural crown of crowns. 

And he was foremost in the fray 
At Casa Mata's Mills— "del Rey "-- 

Where we fought one to four, 
Where higher than at Waterloo, 
For ninety minutes carnage flew. 

Red-robed in Aztec gore. 

At Montezuma's ancient keep — 
Chapultapec — his accents deep 

Cheered the chec'k stormers on ; 
Still leading, animating all, 
Until we forced the city wall, 

And Mexico was won. 

Though I lament the choice he made 
Whenj-yielding his still stainless blade 

In anti Union strife, 
I know he deemed it duty done, 
Dire duty, as ^'irginia's son 

Owed her both fame and life. 

Earth smiling at the praise or blame 
Of South or North, asserts her claim. 

To Johnston, Jackson, Lee ; 
Fame shrines them'in her place of pride, 
And justly; — no such soldiers died 

At thee, Thermopyla; I 



Geiseral HuntojV then said : 
Gentlemen of the Association of ex- Confederate 

Soldiers and Sailors of Washington City. 

Ladies and Gentlemei^: It is a great privilege 
to meet togetlier as Confederates in this association, 
the object of which is to help the needy, to cheer the 
disheartened, to rejoice with those who rejoice, and 
weep with those who weep, and especially to eulo- 
gize the virtues of the good and great who go before 
us. 

I have greatly rejoiced at the formation of this 
society, and hope it will last as long as Washington 
city holds any survivors of the dear lost cause. 

We cannot meet to celebrate the success of that 
cause, but we can and do meet to recount the hard- 
ships we endured, the sacrifices we made, the vic- 
tories we won, the defeats we suffered while battling 
for that cause, which we believed to be as just and 
sacred as ever animated a patriotic people. 

I feel greatly honored in presiding over your de- 
liberations on any occasion — but especially honored 
to preside over a meeting called to honor the mem- 
ory of one of the greatest and best of our leaders — 
Greneral Joseph E. Johnstoist. 

He was the last but one of the six Confederate 
Generals who led our armies to victory, or in defeat 
inspired them to greater deeds of valor. 

I enjoyed the privilege of knowing General John- 
ston from an early period of the war ; was his col- 
league in the Congress of the United States, and 
from the time he entered Congress till his death, I 
was honored with his confidence, respect and friend- 
ship. 

Whether at the head of a victorious or vanquished 
army, he was always the brave, skilful and trusted 
leader. 

In the councils of this nation he was the watchful 
guardian of his peoples' interest. 

In private life he was the patriotic and honored 



8 

citizen, and the warm and sympathetic friend. In 
the domestic circle he was the devoted and affection- 
ate husband and tender relative. If I had to name 
the virtue which shone most conspicuously in his 
bright character, I would say it was the love of his 
State — his own beloved Virginia. For her and in 
obedience to her call he sacrificed a high position 
and a brilliant future in the Federal army to do bat- 
tle in her defence. To the last moment of his life 
he looked to her as the child to a beloved mother, 
and at any time was willing to sacrifice all — even 
life itself — for her. It is meet and proper that we 
his followers and survivors, should cherish and honor 
his memory and emulate his virtues. 

I congratulate theAssociation on the selection of the 
the orator who will in glowing and eloquent language, 
tell of the virtues and fame of our departed leader 
and friend. The Confederacy had no braver, truer 
or better soldier than our orator for this evening. 
His career in the army was not so brilliant as that 
of General Johnston, but his life was as pure, his 
patriotism was as great, and his courage was as high 
and noble as of any soldier who followed the "Stars 
and Bars" through four years of bloody war. 

I introduce my friend Mr. Leigh Robinson, of 
Washington City, who will now address you : 



ADDRESS. 



"Death makes the brave my friends,'' was the 
great word of the great Crusader; and though the 
outward empire of the chivalry he led has crumbled 
to dust, and "their swords are rust," the intrinsic 
nobleness thereof survives the first crusade and the 
last. Wherever nobleness has a house, there shall 
this gospel also be preached. Nor can it be said to be 
strictly bounded by the noble. The emulation of 
brave lives, and the preservation of their images, is 
the wise instinct of mankind. The path to immor- 
talitj^ is fortitude. In every noble arena this is the 
crucial test. The corner-stone of every fortress of 
man's power and man's honor is man's fortitude. 
Our inmost shrines are altars to this tutelary god. 
Deep in the heart is the sense of that ineradicable 
royalty which makes the crown of thorns more than 
the crown of gold — martyr more than victor. It is 
the true fixed, the constant quality, that hath no fel- 
low in the firmanent. Constancy is the pole on which 
the heavens turn. 

As one who wore this armor against fate, and 
walked erect beneath it till forescore had been passed; 
as one who in all relations evinced the enduring fibre 
which sets the seal on every excellence — Joseph E. 
JoHNSTOJsr is our theme. We are to consider the ex- 
ample of a life which by birth was martial. To the 
son of one Lee's Legion, nourished by the breath of 



10 

heroes, in the heroic prime, a soldier^ life seemed 
the natural office of a soldier's son. A cadetship at 
West Point was the signal that the parade ground 
of his life was chosen, the tuition of his destiny be- 
gun, the Olympian battle joined. "Better," sings 
an ancient bard, "better is the grave than the life of 
him who sighs when the horns summon him to the 
squares of battle." So, sighed not the young sec- 
ond lieutenant, who graduating with honor in 1829, 
first won his spurs in the Florida war. 

The war itself must be acknowledged to be a part 
of that sad chapter, which registers the uncontained 
avidity of a victor race. When, in July, 1821, 
Spain ceded the Floridas to the United States, the 
Indians were roaming unmolested over the Penin- 
sula, and were the recognized possessors of broad 
and fertile acres in the heart of the country. The 
white man's remedy for this is the tangle of treaties, 
from Avhose net-work the Indian emerges a desolat- 
ing savage. It is ever a perilous moment, when 
weakness is the guard of fertility and rapacity is 
strong. But it is when, in the sequel, devastation 
and havoc have been loosed, and tottering age, and 
infantile weakness, and woman's sorrow are alike 
devoured by infuriated murder, that the army ap- 
pears upon the scene. Whatever was the primary 
right or wrong, our young second lieutenant was in 
the field, not for outrage, but to quell it. He was 
there to act a soldier's part in the school of a sol- 
dier's strife and duty. Eight worthily he did it. 
For it fell to him to extricate from- jeopardy the 
command in which he was himself but a subordinate ; 
a jeopardy so great that it left him with the marks 



11 

of five bullets on his person and clothing. On the 
anvil of an ^indomitable will he was already beating 
into polished brightness the fearless mettle of his 
sonl. Henceforth, his "baptism of fire" stands 
sponsor for him. His knighthood has been laid upon 
his shoulder. 

It is the track of the accomplished knight which 
we follow in the war with Mexico— that ardent nurse 
of heroes— where our Second Lieutenant has grown 
to be Captain of Engineers on the staff of Winfield 
Scott. When Vera Cruz yielded to bombardment, 
Captains Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, 
of the general's staff, were appointed to arrange the 
terms of its surrender. Worthier ambassadors of 
victory could not have been chosen.. 

The army then moved along the great national 
road, made by the old Spaniards, to the ancient capi- 
tal of Mexico. On April 12th, 1847, cannon shots 
from Cerro Gordo checked the cavalry advance, and 
made it certain Santa Anna would give battle there. 
At the head of a pass, winding its ascending way 
through a narrow defile of mountains, the enemy 
had fortified himself by a series of breastworks, 
armed with cannon, which commanded the road and 
each other. It was easy to see that, on the left, the 
position could not be taken. Skillful reconnois- 
sances, in which Johnston bore a conspicuous part, 
decided the plan of battle, which was an attack upon 
the right. At the beginning of the assault, John- 
ston was ordered to make one more reconnoissance. 
The rattle of musketry had been heard but a iew 
minutes, when he fell, severely wounded, at the 
head of his daring movement. Of such is the king- 



12 

(lom of victory! There is the dangerous ])ass: there 
tlie difhcnlt height: there the hero's place: there he 
falls! All army ruslies over him to triumph. So 
the steep cone was carried — "the lofty and diffi- 
cult height of Cerro Gordo," — as the commanding 
general called it. 

A soldier's w^ounds are the rounds in his ladder. 
His letter of credit is vs^ritten in his blood. His no- 
ble traffic is the safety of others in return for blows 
to himself. Johxston's wounds pointed to him as 
the fit man to be Lieutenant Colonel of the fine regi- 
ment of Voltiguers. At their head he led the as- 
sault upon Chapultepec, and at their head he was 
again shot down. But his wounds could not imi)ede 
him from entering the City of Mexico, as Command- 
ant of the regiment he had so gallantly led. 

After the war, he was, for a time acting Inspector- 
General. Still later, he was made Lieutenant-Colo 
nel of Cavalry. Finally, he was appointed Quarter- 
master, with the rank of Brigadier, — the highest 
prize which was then accessible. 

Such was the i:>rologue to the more stupendous 
drama upon which the curtain was now to rise. On 
one side of that curtain hung every ambitious hope, 
the fruition whereof might now be counted sure ; 
on the other the strain of an unequal and untried 
power against the odds of number and organized re- 
source. To choose the latter was to plunge into an 
angry flood which might prove the dark abyss. It 
was the leap from sure eminence into the storm and 
roar of the elements. To JoirNSTOX there was no 
alternative. His choice was the hero's choice, — where 
the sacrifice was all that was certain. The forlorn 



hope had ever been his hope. He forsook the as- 
sured eminence for the earthquake of revolution ; to 
stand or fall with the soil it rocked. It was the peril 
of everj-thing, only to be justified, if principle was 
at stake. Johnston's justification can be given in 
no words better than his own. I believed, he says, 
"that apart from any right of secession, the revolu-^ 
tion begun was justified by the maxims so often re- 
peated by Americans, that free government is founded 
on the consent of the governed, and that every com- 
munity strong enough to establish and maintain its 
independence has a right to assert it. Having been 
educated in such opinions, I naturally determined 
to return to the State of which I was a native, join 
the people, among whom I was born, and live with 
my kindred, and, if necessary, fight in their de- 
fense." 

It was but little more than a decade since John- 
ston had freely shed his blood in a war, which grew 
out of our very willing vindication of the right of 
Texas to secede from Mexico, and accede to the 
Union. The United States, somewhat loudly, pro- 
claimed to the world that this was right. A Presi- 
dent had been elected for triumphing in that cause. 
It was natural for Johnston to believe, that a right, 
which had been so exultingly attributed to a province 
of Mexico, colonized under her laws, was necessarily 
annexed to that commonwealth of Virginia, which 
was the first free State of this New World. Indeed^ 
it will be always difficult to explain why Texas her- 
self did not have at least as much legal right to go 
as to come. 

But for Johnston, as for destiny, there was but 



14 

one tribunal to wliich the issue was referred, and that 
was visibly confronting him. It was for the sword 
to write the record. The gage of battle was thrown 
down, and by Johnston lifted with a knight's good 
conscience. What followed is written in letters of 
tianie, and in this crude summary is only referred to as 
illustrative of character. For the first word and act 
of Johnston when he drew his sword , on the side he so 
unreservedly espoused, prefigures his quality — the 
judgment as unswerving as it was intrepid, the fac 
ulty to be bold or cautious as the emergency de- 
manded. His sure eye quickly saw that the tri- 
angle, formed by the Potomac, the Shennandoah, 
and Furnace Ridge, was untenable by any force not 
strong enough to hold Maryland Heights, which 
swept every part of it by enfilade and reverse fires; 
and that, moreover, it was twenty miles out of po- 
sition to defend against Patterson's expected ad- 
vance, or to prevent McClellan's junction with 
him. His soldierly sense informed him that Win- 
chester was the strategic point for every purpose. 
There the practicable roads from west and north- 
west, as well as from Manassas, meet the route from 
Pennsylvania and Maryland. Thither, on the 15th 
of June, he moved his meagre force from the funnel 
of Harper's Ferry. On the next day Patterson 
crossed the Potomac. The skill with which, one 
month later, he eluded Patterson's army of more 
than thirty thousand, and Jinrled his own from the 
mountains upon McDowell, was the master-stroke 
of Manassas — Johnston's rear column, under Kirby 
Smith, coming upon the field, just as Barnard Bee 
was falling, and Jackson's Stonewall the last Gibral- 



15 

tar- Just when tlie South Carolina Brigade was 
hardest pressed, an aide or courier of Bee, meeting 
Johnston, asked, "Where are your Virginians?" 
•'In the thickest of the fight," was the Spartan an- 
swer. It was a victory" won by an army which it- 
self barely grazed defeat, and one, therefore, difficult 
to pursue. But in this cursory glance one thing 
cannot be omitted — the full credit which Johnston 
everywhere gives Beauregard. 

The bold design submitted by the military offi- 
cers, in a council of war, at Manassas in September, 
1861, to concentrate at that point the strength of the 
Confederacy, even at the cost of leaving bare of de- 
fense points more remote, so that there might be 
taken an aggressive which would be decisive, is a 
matter of history. It is expressive of a brave but 
well balanced judgment, heedful and comprehensive, 
which sought to exchange risk where victory was not 
vital for where it was. It is true weighty reasons 
were given for overruling it. An army of sixty thous- 
and soldiers was the force deemed essential to such a 
movement. Troops to increase the army to this num- 
ber could only be furnished by taking them from other 
positions then threatened. This seemed to the Execu- 
tive unreasonable. New troops could not be fur- 
nished because there were no arms save those which 
were borne by the troops then in the field. Arms 
were expected from abroad, but had not come, and 
the manufacture was still undeveloped. By this 
council of war, a light is thrown on the military 
conditions, which, for succeeding mouths, were de- 
fensive only. In the penury of men and arms thereby 
revealed excessive forwardness was not obligatory. 



16 

But the defensive was one which, whenever as- 
saulted, as at Leesburg, displayed an undismayed 
and impenetrable front. 

At the close of the winter and opening of the 
spring of 1861, the time had come for Johnston to 
embrace in his vision and preparation, the four 
routes whereby McClellan might advance — the one 
chosen the previous July ; another by Fredericks- 
burg ; the third and fourth by the lower Rappahan- 
nock, or the Peninsula between the York and James. 
The choice of the second route (joined to movements 
which, by the aid of the river, it was easy to con- 
ceal), would place McClellan at least two days 
nearer Richmond than was Johnston at Bull 
Run. Face to face with these conditions, the 
Confederate General, between the 5th and the 
11th of March, placed his entire army on the south 
bank of the Rappahannock, where with equal readi- 
ness he could resist his antagonist advancing from 
Manassas, or meet him at Fredericksburg, and at the 
same time be in a position to unite with others, 
should he move from Fortress Monroe, or by the 
lower Rappahannock. On the latter date McClel- 
lan occupied the works at Centreville and Manassas, 
which, except by Quaker guns, had been deserted 
since the evening of the 9th. Fortress Monroe was 
then chosen as the base of operations against Rich- 
mond. Soon perceiving the evidence of this, John- 
ston moved to the south of the Rapidan, whence 
he could still more effectually unite the forces of 
opposition to the meditated movement. McClel- 
lan' s plan was to capture the force on the Peninsula, 
open the James and press on to Richmond before 



17 

reinforcements could arrive. Two things baffled his 
purpose — lirst, Magruder's inflexible intrenchments; 
second, Johnston's alertness. On the day McClel- 
lan began his movement from Fortress Monroe, 
Johnston began the movement to swell Magruder's 
handful. It was on the fifth of April that McClel- 
lan was brought to a halt, in front of Yorktown and 
the supporting fortifications. As the conclusion from 
the artillery duel of this day, which was protracted 
until dusk, it was deemed inexpedient to carry these 
jDositions by assault. It was an army of a hundred 
thousand against twelve. With such forces against 
such forts, it had been ascertained, that the ground, 
in front of those frowning heights and forbidding- 
swamps, was swept by guns, which could not be 
silenced. Accordingly, parallels were started to bring 
Yorktown to terms by a more gradual procedure 
There is, however, no piarallel to the confession ex- 
torted from McClellan by Magruder. 

From the final parallel, it was thought siege bat- 
teries would be ready to open on the 6th of May. 
Johnston's comi^utation, coinciding with McClel 
lan's, Yorktown was evacuated on the night of the 
3d. On the morning of the 4th, empty works again 
capitulated to the conqueror. 

It was at the junction of the Yorktown and Hamp- 
ton Roads, at about half -past five on the morning of 
the 5th, that Hooker's sharp shooters, leading the 
pursuit, drove in the Confederate picket. It was in 
front of Fort Magruder, one of a cordon of redoubts, 
thirteen in number, which Magruder's forethought 
had constructed. It was just two miles from the 
venerable shades and spires of Williamsburg. With- 



18 

in two miles of Hooker, at the time, were thirty 
thousand troops ; within twelve miles the bulk of the 
Army of the Potomac. He, therefore, made his dis- 
positions to attack, so that if he did not capture the 
army before liim, he would at lenst hold it until 
others could. Williamsburoj was a well fought Held, 
where Hancock leaped to fame, and where none can 
be rei)roached with want of valor. But the army in 
front of Hooker was neither captured nor held. The 
well calculated blow of Johnston was fierce and stun- 
ning, and his very deliberate retreat was no more 
interrupted. What most interests us lo-night is the 
magnanimousgrace with which JoiiNSToisr refers to the 
officer in command of the troops engaged. "About 
three o'clock," he says, "I rode upon the field, but 
found myself compelled to be a mere spectator, for 
General Longstreet's clear head and brave heart left 
me no apology for interference.'' 

Meantime McClellan was bending every energy to 
the active shipment of troops, by water, to the west 
bank of the Pamunky, opposite West Point. In vain 
did he seek there the unguarded spot. Just how to 
strike when blows were exigent, and how to hold up 
his buckler against surprise ; in one instant to be 
shield and s^^ear, was Johnston's secret. He had re- 
tired before overwhelming numbers with the step 
and gesture of a master. 

It was Johnston's theory of war, that the time 
for blows to be efficient was not when his enemy was 
near his base, and he distant from his own ; but under 
exactly reverse conditions. As early as April 15th, 
Johnston proposed that McClellan's army should be 
attacked in front of Richmond by one as numerous, 



19 

formed by uniting all the available forces of the Con- 
federacy in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Geor- 
gia, with those at Norfolk, on the Peninsula, and then 
near Richmond. Such an army surprising McClel- 
lan by an attack, when he was looking to the siege 
of Richmond, might be expected to defeat him ; and 
defeat, a hundred miles from his then base of sup- 
plies, would mean destruction. On the 22d and 27th 
he reiterates this view. A month later, the new 
vigor of twenty-five thousand soldiers, drawn from 
North Carolina and the south, added to the "red 
right arm " of Jackson, and launched by the genius 
of Lee, was the thunderbolt to rive asunder McClel- 
lan's oak. Johnston's plan would have forestalled 
preparation by the unexpected, before a change of 
base was feasible. 

Reasons having been presented in opposition to 
his original plan, Johnston's next design was to en- 
courage an increasing interval between McClel- 
lan's troops, as the latter approached the Chicka- 
hominy, and, when he was fairly astride the little 
river, to attack him. He must do this before Mc 
Dowell, moving southward from Fredericksburg, 
could swell the tide of battle against Richmond. 
On the morning of May 30th, reconnoissances showed 
that one entire corps, and a part, if not the whole of 
another, were on the south side of the rivei-. In point 
of fact, the corps of Heintzelman and Keyes were 
across— the latter in advance. Heintzelman was at 
White Oak and Bottom's bridges, with the nearest 
support to him some six miles distant, on the op- 
posite side of the stream. The Chickahominy ran 
between the two wings of the army. Johnston now 



20 # 

saw his opxiortunity, and to see it was to seize it. A 
violent rain storna, which fell soon after, swelling the 
stream, and [)erhaps making it impassable, convinced 
him that the hoped for hour had struck. His orders 
were at once given. Written orders were dispatched 
to Hill, Hugvr, and G. W. Smith, and in writing 
acknowledged. Longstreet being near headquarters 
received his orders verbally. G. W. Smith was to 
take 2)ositiou on the left, to support the attack which 
the other divisions were to make upon the right. All 
were to move at daybreak. 

Seven Pines, which was to be the chief scene of 
encounter, is at the junction of the Nine Mile and 
Williamsburg roads. Casey's redoubt was a half 
mile nearer to Richmond. His division and artillery 
formed the first line to be attacked, the left resting 
upon White Oak Swamp, the right extending across 
the York River Railroad. White Oak Swamp, 
the Williamsburg road, and the railroad are nearly 
parallel. Joii>s^STO]sr expected the blow by his own 
right to be delivered before 8 A, M., and was confi- 
dent, that the effect of it would be a complete vic- 
tory, on the south side of the swollen Chickahominy. 
This opinion is fully shared by General Keyes, and 
published by him in his "Fifty Years' Observations." 

Wherever the responsibility may be lodged for 
the failure to attack, not only at 8 A. M., but 
even as early as noon, the defect was not in Jomsr- 
sroN's orders and timely preparations. For some 
reason never sufficiently explained, and still matter 
of controversy, the attack on the right did not be- 
gin until '2 o'clock in the afternoon. But even 
after the delay of all these hours, the rush of 



21 



Hill and Longstreet had stormed and earned the 
entrenohn,ents opposed to them, with the camp 
eqnipments, ordnance and stores belonging to the 
troops assailed, driving Casey in ntter ronte back 
upori Couch, and Couch npon Heintzleman, when 
their onward movement was stopped by he lall- 
inK nioht Johnston had stationed himself on the 
left to^'take part in the co-operating movement,- 
where the force in front ot Smith had been rescned 
from defeat by Sumner's opportune arrival-and 
had inst ordered each regiment to sleep where it 
fought, to be ready to renew the battle at dawn, 
when he received a musliet shot in the shoulder 
and a moment after was unhorsed by a fragment o 
shell which struck him in the breast. The reins of 
his steed and of his victory fell from his hands. The 
brightness of his sword shone for an instant, and 
then the darkness swallowed it. The sharpness of 
it slept when the night became its sheath A hero 
was borne upon his shield fallen bnt undismayed. 
Beneath the smitten breast there lived a heart un- 

smitten. 

When Johnston was stricken down at Seven Pines, 
he left an army, which had been animated by him 
to a new consciousness of valor; the Army ot \ ir- 
ginia, whose organization was the work of his hand. 
Doubtless, one object of the blow was acconiphshed 
in the check to McClellan's advance on the south 
side of the swamp. Nevertheless, as the strategy n, 
the valley and the leap to Manassas was the shining 
image of the boldness and caution so happily mixed 
in bin.- so Seven Pines might be construed to be the 
malignant prophecy of that dark fate, which seemed 



09 



thereafter to rise in mutiny against him, and be the 
incessant wound of victory. Rarely has the counten- 
ance of fate worn a look and spoken from a lip so 
cynical, as in that chapter, wherein as it were, war's 
master was made his victim, his own edge turned 
against hini. It was the superlative satire of events. 
Johnston's eminence was tried in the most liery 
furnace in which such energies could be constrained 
to walk. The field of victory spread before him to 
be organized was. with recurring bitterness, snatched 
from him on the day the prizes were bestowed, v^e 
feel as if we were witnessing less the encounter of 
man with human circumstance, than the suijernatural 
warfare of aTitanwiiose light is with the skies. 

Johnston reported for duty on the 12th of Novem- 
ber, and on the 24th, received orders of that date, 
assigning him to the command of'the Department of 
the West; a geographical department, including the 
States of Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and parts 
of Louisiana, Georgia and North Carolina. Had the 
i-eality of this command been delivered to Johnston, 
it would have been the very arena for the employment 
of his large gifts. The vision which is comj^etent to 
survey and manage the whole landscape of war, and 
direct the grand movements and general arrange- 
ments of campaigns is known as strategy. Of this 
great faculty Johnston was the master. 

The world's mad game is not played blind fold. 
The genius of war, like other genius, is not the mere 
gift of luck, but the consummation of a profound 
attention to details and all the forces of supremacy. 
The game, in which the greatest intellects are match 
ed for the greatest stakes, must be an intellectual 



93 

game. The successful general, who succeeds against 
disproportionate numbers and resources, is not a mili- 
tary gambler, but the closest of all close calculators. 
His greatness is that when he does stand upon re- 
ality he knows it, and is not to be terrified out of it 
or the daring which it justifies. This is the applica- 
tion of the great saying of the Roman orator, "A 
man of courage is also full of faith." Genius has 
its own way of dealing with the impossible, but it is 
not a senseless way, nor ever really reckless. 

Johnston went to the West, not to do brilliant 
things for their own sake, but to win the cause of 
which he was the soldier. Accustomed as he ever 
was to ride in the van of danger, his bruises of bat 
tie shining like stars upon him, he was the man of 
all otliers to be heeded, when he counselled caution. 
His whole life was that glorious thing— fair combat 
through strife to victory. With an unshrinking 
devotion equal to any task, he proposed to his own 
courageous intellect that system of the offensive-de- 
fensive, which once before in the world's annals was 
the salvation, and the sole salvation, of the bravest 
and most determined people on its face. The great- 
est of all warlike races rescued itself from destruc- 
tion, and the world's future empire from a rival, by 
slowly learning that victories may be won by avoid- 
ing no less than by seeking battle ; that a march or 
manoeuvre at the right time, is more potent than a 
battle at the wrong time ; that to seize a position 
which will threaten the adverse army the instant it 
does move, may far exceed the value of an attack 
upon it, if it does not ; that the circuit of a large and 
politic strategy is wider and higher, and makes its 



24 

demands upon an intellectual grasp more subtle and 
more vivid, than the mere rapture of pitched battle. 
This was the instruction of which Fabius and Mar- 
cellus were the apt pupils, and Hannibal the school- 
master. 

It is idle now to s]»eculate as to wliat might have 
happened, had Johnston been allowed to be the real 
main sj^ring of movements he was so fitted to direct ; 
if the substance of his important command had been 
delivered to him. Fortune opposed him with an 
iron heart, which no excellence could touch. He 
opposed fortune with an iron will, which, uncon- 
quered and undismay<^d, has outlived fortune's worst 
and triumphed over it. His strife seems to be waged 
less with visible, than with some inscrutable power, 
which baffled, but never met him in authentic shape. 
It is his peculiar fame, that no disappointment and 
no calamity has been able to deny and to dethrone his 
real supremacy. All noble strength partakes of the 
wrestlers agony. The thing which we honor if the 
unshrinking dedication of thews and sinews by man 
to his fellows, in the face of the frown of power and 
in the teeth of temporal scorn. That which makes 
the brave man, struggling in the storms of fate, a 
sight for gods and men, is the magnanimity to rise 
from strain and overthrow, with a rectitude of will 
untainted and unspent; the ujirightness, which, bows 
with bended knee before God's footstool, but not with 
bended neck under man's j^oke, nor subjugated brow 
under life's oppression. The struggle of fate seemed 
to be to write the death-warrant of all which to 
Johnston was most precious ; but the final victory 
was with Johnston. The moral self which was his 



25 



charge to keep, the post of which he was God' s sentry, 
was never once surprised, never once surrendered. 
What was then his lonely outpost is to-night his 

citadel. 

The ink was hardly dry upon the special order 
assigning Johnston to the Department of the West, 
when he promptly made known the plan of cam- 
paign which commended itself to him. Inasmuch 
as the army of the Trans-Mississippi was relatively 
strong, and the army now proposed to be placed 
under him was relatively weak, and the latter subject 
to the further disadvantage of being divided by the 
Tennessee River, he urged that the united force of 
both departments be thrown at once on Grant. As 
the troops in Arkansas and those under Pemberton 
had the same great object— the defense of the Mis- 
sissippi Valley— and both opposed to troops having 
one object -the possession of the Mississippi— the 
main force of the latter operating on the east side 
of the river; the more direct and immediate co- 
operation of the former was the thing advised. He 
significantly adds, ''As our troops are now distrib- 
uted. Yicksburg is in danger." He proposed, there- 
fore, the union of the forces of Holmes and Pemberton; 
those of Bragg to co-operate if practicable. By the 
junction he could, as he believed, overwhelm Grant, 
then between the Tallahatchie and Holly Springs, far 
from his base— the place for victory. 

No notice having been taken of this plan, and sug- 
gestions made by him respecting the commands of 
Bragg and Pemberton, as well as objections inter- 
posed by him to the diminution of the former force 
to augment the latter, failing also of approval, 



26 

Johnston acquired the feeling that his wide com- 
mand was little more than nominal. To be answer 
able for issues without authority to order, or potently 
advise, is "a barren sceptre" which none can grasp 
with use or honor. Upon the ground that armies 
with different objects, like those of Mississippi and 
Tennessee, were too far apart for mutual dependence, 
and, therefore, could not be commanded proj^erly by 
the same general, Johnston asked to have a different 
command assigned him. Ultimately a special order 
did so re-assign him. Intermediately he received 
specific orders directing him where to go. 

It was on the 22d of January, 1863, while he was 
inspecting the defenses of Mobile, that he was or- 
dered to go to the headquarters of Bragg, for the 
purpose of determining whether the latter had so far 
lost the confidence of his army, as to make it expe- 
dient to supersede him. If such was found to be the 
fact, Johnston was to be his successor. It was 
hardly fair, thus to make a generous mind at once com- 
petitor and judge; to place him in a position, where 
his merest word would exalt himself at the expense of 
the party judged. Johnston threw every doubt in 
favor of his companion in arms, and advised against 
Bragg' s removal . His letter to the Confederate Pres- 
ident upon this subject deserves to be known more 
widely than it is. "I respectfully suggest,"' he wrote, 
"that should it then appear to you necessary to re- 
move General Bragg, none in this army or engaged in 
this investigation ought to be his successor. ' ' This is 
the voice of a true knight. It is the retiex of that 
grace of mind which is ever the noblest ornament to 
its greatness. When death has silenced him who 



27 

wrote, it speaks to the hearts which survive, like a 
trumpet in the stillness of the night. He had returned 
to Mobile when, on the 12th of February, he was or- 
dered to assume charge of the army of middle Tennes- 
see. At the time the general of that army was bowed 
and broken by the illness of his wife, supposed to be 
at the point of death. With a natural chivalry, John- 
ston postponed the communication 6f the order, re- 
porting to Richmond the reasons for so doing. Once 
more an act of noble grace ! These are the acts which 
write their bright light on the human sky. When the 
particular crisis had passed, Johnston's own debil- 
ity was such that he could not assume command, and 
the order was indefinitely postponed. He had re- . 
ported for duty all too soon, and too severely taxed 
the adamant which knew so little how to yield. It 
was not until the 12th of March that he was able to 
resume his duties in the field. 

Johnston had inspected Vicksburg during Christ 
mas week, and even so early had decided, as he 
shortly afterwards stated to General Maury, that it 
was a mistake to keep in an intrenched camp so 
large an army, whose true place was in the 
field ; that a heavy work should be constructed to 
command the river just above Vicksburg, " at the 
turn"— with a year's supply for a good garrison of 
three thousand men. Until April 14th Pemberton's 
telegrams indicated an effort against Bragg, in whose 
vicinity Johnston was, and not against Vicksburg. 
On the 16th of April the Union fleet passed the bat- 
teries of Vicksburg. To the mind of Johnston it 
was clear that, when this could happen, Vicksburg 
ceased to be of any more importance than any other 



28 

place on the river. On the 29th of Ax)ril, and 1st 
of May, Peniberton annonnced a movement upon 
Grand (Inlf, with a view to Vicksburg. Jojinston 
replied on the instant, telling Pemberton to unite 
all his troops from every quarter for the repulse of 
(xrant, while the latter was crossing the rivei', and to 
move at once for the purpose — adding j" success will 
give you back what was abandoned to win it." On the 
9th of May a dispatch was received by Johnston, at 
Tullahoma, in Middle Tennessee, directing him to 
"proceed at once to Mississippi to take chief command 
of the forces there." He replied, "I shall go im- 
mediately, although unfit for field service." From 
the shell which had unhorsed him at Seven Pines, 
he had not yet so far rallied as to be able to ride 
into the field. But the orders he forthwith gave re- 
flect the warrior grasp Avhicli nothing could relax. 
Three things Avere clear to Johnston ; first, that the 
time to attack was when the enemy was divided in 
the passage of the river ; second, that the invading 
army must be defeated in the field, and that Vicks- 
burg must fall if besieged ; third, that Vicksburg 
ceased to be of exceptional importance, after the 
junction of the upper and lower fleet. In coincidence 
with these views, were his orders to the officer in 
command at Vicksburg; to leave the intrenchments 
there, and unite with himself in an attack upon the 
separate detachments of the opposing force ; but in 
any event, to evacuate Vicksburg and its dependen- 
cies, and save the army which could not escape if 
Vicksburg w-ere besieged. 

When, from a failure to execute these instructions, 
Sherman, on the 13th of May, was able to interpose 



29 



four divisions at Clinton, on the Southern Railroad, 
Joii^^STOX, then hurrying forward with his little 
army at once ordered Pemberton to come up, with 
uli the strength he could assemble, in Sherman s 
rear, promising his own co-operation. Clinton was 
seventeen miles east of Pemberton. As is wellknown 
and, doubtless, because of the importance ascribed 
to Yicksburg, Pemberton moved south, instead ot 
east, with a part only of his force, and out of reach 
of the little band, waiting to participate at Clinton^ 
He marched to the disasters of Champion Hill and 
Baker's Creek. On being so informed, m terms 
which admitted of no mistake, Johnston ordered 
the immediate evacuation of Vicksburg and Port 
Hudson. 

It is not desirable to discuss the considerations, 
which caused a sincerely patriotic soldier to so devi- 
ate from these orders, as to invert and, in effect, to an- 
nul them Johnston's orders meant to him as he 
states, "the fall of Port Hudson, the surrender ot the 
Mississippi River, and the severance of the Confeder- 
acy " Saving that it was already severed, this was 
true If however, instead of deviation, there had 
been execution, whether or not it would have made 
the difference between the disaster which was sus- 
tained by Pemberton at Baker's Creek, and victory 
at Clinton, it would certainly have made the differ- 
ence between an army captured in Vicksburg and an 
unconquered one outside of it. The investment of 
Vicksburg was completed of the 19th, and its surren- 
der was then but a matter of time. Mr. A. H. Stephens 
states, that on the 23d of June, he was informed at 
the War Department, that the surrender of A icks- 



30 

burg was inevitable. If the besieged could not escape 
the besieger at the beginning of the siege, still less at 
the end ; if the force within did not possess the power 
to unite with the force without before the siege began, 
how much less could it expect to effect such junction 
lifter fort}^ days and forty nights of exhaustion were 
added to iP. If the stronger force within the citadel 
could not cut its Avay out, how much less could the 
weaker force without be expected to cut its way in? 
At the time Johnstox had but two brigades. The 
race of collecting troops, wherewith to relieve the be- 
sieged, was run against those who could f^asily out- 
strip him. After five weeks of indefatigable exer- 
tion, he could only say, on the 20tli of June, "when 
all reinforcements arrive, I shall have about 23,000." 
A twice beaten army, enclosed in Yicksburg, could 
not be saved by one not equal in strength to a third 
of the covering force. To have attempted it, against 
strong circumvallations, would have been to com- 
plete the capture of the army within, by the wanton 
massacre of the army without — to Hing a second 
catastrophe after the first. The fate of Vicksburg 
and Port Hudson was sealed, unless an army strong- 
enough to carry Grant's intrenchments could be 
brought to the assault. 

"He should have struck a blow," it is said. To 
strike a blow unwisely is one of the simi)lest of human 
actions. It is done daily with the smallest possible 
profit to mankind. It will ever be a narrow cockpit 
in which the tactics of Donnybrook Fair score their 
success. The shout of victory or death is irrele- 
vant where death alone is possible. It is not even 
to court the hazard of a die to rush to sure de- 



81 

struction. Should the general then set his cause 
upon the cast, and rush into the battle merely to 
die there ? The rush of despair proclaims as much 
fear as courage. Johnston was right. The place to 
defend Vicksburg was in the field. As a beleaguered 
city its defense was hopeless. Isolation was destruc- 
tion. Vicksburg ceased to be of value, when its bluffs 
could no longer close navigation to a hostile force, 
nor keep it open to a friendly one. The array within 
was invaluable, and could not be replaced. To im- 
mure was to sacrifice. To shut in strength was to 
shut out strength. In the great game of danger, he 
wins the day who really risks the least, however he 
may seem to hazard all. Courage and skill are shown 
in disregarding the imminent ajipearance, in the con- 
fidence of victory seen through the deadly imminence. 
But when to the unblenchingeye of war's leader the 
peril is the only reality, and the victory beyond is 
the illusion, it is fatuity to strike. The perilous 
movement is victorious only when it places an ad 
versary at a real disadvantage. Instead of a concen- 
tration of the weaker army, as ordered by Johnston, 
so as to be able to fall upon the stronger one in de- 
tail; by the deviations from his orders, the weaker 
army was so distributed as to be taken in detail by 
the concentrated stronger one. 

There are times in life's experience, when the winds 
of fortune seem to sport with human actions ; when 
those we would unite with frustrate us, to their own 
cost, and by their sacrifice ; times when it would 
look, as if some sardonic deity had been unbound to 
baffle calculation ; to poison the springs of action ; 
to shake from their centre faith and duty; to per- 



82 

plex reason and conscience ; and to thedeatli-call of 
a true endeavor be the mocking Mephistopheles. 

Something akin to this must have been i)resent to 
Johnston, when he saw the strength of the West 
hewed in two, by movements which seemed to solicit 
the fortified line of the enemy to enter, like a wedge 
of steel, between Vicksburg and his own exterior 
force; when he saw the relatively strong force retire 
behind works because of inability to meet the enemy 
in the open field, and then from their walls call ui)on 
the relatively weak force to storm that same enemy 
in his fortifications. In such catastrophe, all that 
man can do is to oppose duty to dejection; make clear 
the record of responsibility, and follow with unfalter- 
ing step the light left in the sky. This done, the re- 
sult is with the great Captain of events, who makes 
and unmakes life and its aims. It was the destiny 
of Johnston to be the unhearkened Cassandra of his 
time, the sageness of whose counsel history will 
measure, by the fatality of not receiving it. 

It is marvelous, that after such a calamity as that 
at Vicksburg, the small army which had been gath- 
ered by Johnston, was XJWi'sued by no worse disas- 
ter. While Vicksburg and Port Hudson stood, and 
there was hope that either might be succored, Jack- 
son was essential to the mana?uvering army — the 
key to the position. When they fell, the military 
value of Jackson ended. Nevertheless, Johnston 
drew up in front of it, inviting an assault, and only 
when his adversary showed he again intended to re- 
sort to the sure course of investment, did he with- 
draw. I believe there is no dispute that Johnston's 
management here was one of signal ability. One of 



33 

his officers, who in the later history of the war took 
sides with Hood, in speaking of Johnston"'r mas- 
terly management, at this point, added this com- 
mentary — ''I may say, I never saw Johnston do 
anything which did not seem to me better done than 
anyone else could do it. My only criticism is that 
tliere was not more of it." The faculty to do what- 
ever is done better than anyone else can do it is one 
which is never redundant, and, therefore, one which 
a community struggling, in the death grips, for exist- 
ence, can ill-afford to part with, and invitq to do 
nothing. 

During the remainder of the year the operations 
of the Union army in Mississippi were limited to 
jDredatory expeditions. Nothing was captured which 
was in Johnston's custody; nothing defeated which 
he led. 

During this summer Johnston received a letter 
from the Confederate President, criticising his con- 
duct and conclusions, in terms, which were hardly 
those to win a hero's assent. To this Johnston 
replied with that invincible clearness of which, as 
of the art of war, he was the master. There would 
seem to be ground for the dilemma, afterwards inter- 
posed by Johnston, that, if the criticisms of him 
were deserved, the further retention of him in com- 
mand was indefensible. And his services were to be 
retained! Unhappily thereafter upon terms of mu- 
tual distrust between him and the authority to which 
he reported. 



'64 

It was on the 18tli of December, 1803, that John- 
ston was ordered to assume command of the Army 
of Tennessee. The instructions which awaited him 
at Dalton advised him, that he would probably find 
the army there disheartened by late events, and de- 
prived of ordnance and materials; that it was hoped 
his presence would do much to re-establish hope, 
restore discipline, and inspire confidence. 

Johnston succeeded to Bragg upon an unenviable 
throne. Whether justly or unjustly, the experiences 
of the preceding year had alienated the allegiance 
without which it was incoherent and discredited. The 
battle of Missionary Ridge was the greatest disaster 
sustained by the Confederate arms in pitched battle 
during the Avhole war. Nearly one- half the guns, 
caissons and munitions of the defeated army had 
been abandoned. Dalton had not been selected be- 
cause of its defensive strength, but simply because 
the retreat from Missionary Ridge had ceased at that 
point. Johnston was sent to repair disaster. The 
army he now commanded was the same which, under 
Bragg, had been routed at Missionary Ridge. Sher- 
man's army was the one which had routed it. The 
defeated army had been depleted since the battle. 
The successful one had been augmented. Johnston 
so reorganized and reassured his dispirited force, 
that, when the campaign opened in the spring, the 
poorest regiment he had was superior in effective- 
ness and drill to the best when he took command. 
The change was swift and permanent. Thenceforth, 
no army in the Confederacy excelled, if any equaled 
it, in drill and discipline. The whole army felt that 
a lofty gentleman was in command, animated by a 



35 

noble and pervading justice, wliicli no favor could 
bias and no incompetence mislead. The genius for 
rapid organization could not be more splendidly 
evinced. Wherever his hand was laid, a life of dis- 
cipline sprang up. It was the same organizing skill 
which had laid the foundation of the army of the 
East. It" was a wonderful personal influence and 
mastery, which thus drew to him an army acquainted 
chiefly with disaster. If nothing else existed to re- 
flect his excellence, the miracle which he wrought in 
this transformation, from complete rout to complete 
confidence, from fatal chaos and dismemberment in 
to compact order, would, of itself, preserve for us 
the image of great mind's authority and magnetism. 
As JoHNSTO]s^ looked upon this work of his creative 
week, he saw that it was good. 

When on the 6th of May, 1864, the duel between 
the two armies began, two things must be borne in 
mind: first, that on the preceding fourth of July, 
one-third of the strength of the Confederacy had 
fallen, in the east and in the west, at Gettysburg and 
Vicksburg; second, that when the policy of wearing 
out by attrition was inauguarated, it was desirable for 
the weaker party to be economical of wear and tear. 
The time had surely come when the Confederacy could 
not be prodigal of life; when it should take no step 
which was not calculated with disciplined precaution. 
It must make no mistake. The man for this su- 
preme emergency was then at Dalton — a man with 
that great attribute of a leader in convulsion, the 
cax')acity to see things as they are. As with a 
merchant, so with a general, his first business is to 
know when to spend and when to spare. Johnston 



86 

took into consideration the natural featnres of tlie 
country in front: the susceptibility for defense, nat- 
ural and artificial ; the importance of time without 
disaster to his own side ; t ht; slight ivsult of inconclu- 
sive defeat to his oppouent. Only brilliant success 
could now be compensation for serious loss. All 
these were realties which he was not permitted to 
forget. He was now where previous adversity might 
be the background for the revelation of his skill — 
if only he was trusted I Even the Divine Hero did 
not do his mighty work where faith was wanting. 

The chief criticism of Johxston's conduct of this 
campaign rests on his failure to attack Sherman at 
Kocky Face, three miles north of Dalton, when 
McPherson was detached to intercept Johnston's 
communications, by the movement through Snake 
Creek Gap. I believe no intelligent criticism ini- 
]>utes blame to him for a failure to attack at any 
other point. The disposition of the Confederate 
army about Dalton had been made in the hope that 
Sherman would attack with his whole force. There- 
fore, JoirxsTOx's entire strength was concentrated 
there. For the moment his communications were 
unprotected. A mountain divided the opposing 
forces. The difficulty of the passes was as great to 
one side as the other. In these conditions to change 
from the defensive and yield the advantages of 
ground was a certain risk. On May 1st, the effec- 
tive strength of Johnston's army, infantry, artil 
lery, and cavalry was 42,8r)6. On April 10th, 1864, 
Sherman vepoYted as /nesenl /'or d/Up 180,000 men. 
Out of til is for(^e he proposed to form a compact 
army of exactly 100,000 men, for the purpose of his 



87 

advance. The number above given is to be distin- 
guished from the nnmbei; borne on his rolls, which 
amounted to upwards of 840,000 men. Supposing 
the utmost, a victory by Johnston over the 100,000 
picked men, Sherman had behind him the fortified 
gap at Ringgold, and behind that the fortress of 
Chattanooga. Nevertheless, a division of his adver- 
sary's force — that moment of division, which is al 
ways the moment of weakness — was just the moment 
which Johnston was wont to seize, and he was about 
to seize this, when his recoiinoissances assured him 
that it was the bulk of Sherman's army, which, cov- 
ered from exposure by the curtain of Rocky Face, 
was marching towards Resaca by Snake Creek Ga^^ 
and could, without serious resistance, cut his con- 
nections while he was engaged by the force in front. 
It was the intirmity of Johnston that he would not 
incur great risk without reconnoissance. He would 
not leap) in the dark. He had the gift, as it proved 
to him, the fatal gift, of always knowing what he 
was about. Unless he at once intercepted Sherman 
the ruin to him was certain. Months afterwards one 
of his officers ventured to ask why he did not attack 
at Rocky Face. The sententious reply was, "Napo- 
leon once said, the General who suffers his commu- 
nications to be cut deserves to be shot." 

He should have fought, his critics say, "as Lee 
and Jackson fought at Chancellorsville; he should 
have thrown everything on the hazard of a die; com- 
plete victory in front would have been followed by 
the rout of the force in the rear." Such critics 
forget that the victorious army at Chancellorsville- 
was not one which, after complete defeat at Fred- 



38 

ericksburji^, had been delivered to a new commander, 
with a friendly caution, as to the probable eflfect of 
such late tragedy npon spirit and oi'ganization. 
Chancel lorsville had been prepared by all the host 
of victories which fought for it like another army. 
That army was one which believed defeat to be im- 
possible. The army at Dalton had never known what 
real victory meant. It was of incalculable import- 
ance, that the engagement of the latter army, under 
their new leader, should be sharply discriminated 
from all which had preceded it. In mere bravery the 
past could not be exceeded. It was the wise discern- 
ing stroke of the new regime which it was essential 
to infallibly impart. 

Under any military conditions, one might ask, is 
it wholly reasonable to exact, as a matter of strict 
military right, that a general, on taking command 
of an army, shall at once, without more words, be- 
come a Robert E. Lee, or Stonewall Jackson, at the 
highest i:)inacle of their earthly achievement? One 
might conclude, from the inclination expressed by 
some, to inaugurate the triumphs of Lee and Jackson, 
at the portal of the Georgia campaign, that such in- 
auguration was a matter of election and pure prefer- 
ence by ambitious minds; that one, whose heart was 
in the right place, might make a habit of the miltary 
marvel of the war. Alas ! the rarest and most for- 
tunate displays of greatness, Chancellorsvilles and 
Centrevilles are not creatures of suffrage; and all 
who go forward on such disastrous hypothesis, in 
Georgia campaigns and elsewhere, are destined to 
discover, that desire, aspiration even, is not synony 
mous with faculty. 



39 

It was ill this same month, after the terrible re- 
pulse of Spottsylvania Court House, that Grant made 
a flank movement to the North Anna, not unlike 
that of Sherman to Resaca. The object of Grant 
was by a detour eastward, around the point where 
the Richmond and Fredericksburg Railroad crosses 
the North Anna, to cut Lee's communications. Did 
Lee strike the force left behind? No; nor did he 
attempt to strike the force sent forward before rein- 
forcements could arrive ; but, by the most expedi- 
tious interior line, he moved his own army to Han- 
over Junction, where Hancock met it. Here the two 
parts of the Army of the Potomac were not only sep- 
arated, but a river so ran between them that, to get 
from one of Grant's wings to the other, that river 
would have to be crossed twice. On the other hand, 
Lee had concentrated his army between the Little 
river and the North Anna, not only in a strong posi- 
tion, but so sitcated that it could easily act in 
unity, and concentrate upon either of the opposing 
wings. Some say Lee should have left a small part 
of his force to hold the intrenchments of his left, 
and attacked Hancock with the rest of his army. 

Hancock's force did not exceed 24,000 infantry. 
Leaving 7,000 to hold the west face of his intrench- 
ments, and the apex on the river, Lee might have 
attacked Hancock with possibly 36,000 infantry. 
But, as an able officer suggests,'- Hancock was in- 
trenched, and Lee well knew the advantage that gave, 
and that he could not afford to suffer the inevita- 
ble loss. Those who would make the Atlanta cam- 
paign exactly like Chancellorsville should remem- 



*Gen. A. A. Humphreys. 



40 

ber that, fiom the last day's light at the Wilderness 
to Appomattox, Lee attacked no more ; that from 
this time on Lee fought only behind intreiichments ; 
that what could be done by in 18J18. could not neces- 
sarily he done in 1864. 

The whole criticism of Johnston strangely for- 
gets, that the victorious results at Second Manassas 
and Chancellorsville were the consequences of Jack- 
son's spring upon the. rear of Pope and Hooker; and 
not because Jackson suffered himself to be in their 
predicament. The question presented to Johnston 
at Rocky Face was, not whether he would do like 
Stonewall Jackson, but whether he would deliber- 
ately do like the generals whom Stonewall Jackson 
defeated. 

Every man in authority is the shepherd of a trust; 
but what so sacred as the general's — lives that will 
step to death at his bidding. Of all fiduciaries none 
has such account to render as he who is commissioned 
to wage the fight of a people. Human life is the 
talent laid in his hand, to be poured out like water, 
if unto him it seemeth good. Of all trusts and tal- 
ents this is the one to be wisely used, and in no wise 
abused. The policy of Johnston was not the step 
forward which would slide three steps back, but the 
step back which would find the strength to stride 
trebly forward. It was the drawing back of the 
ram's foot to strike with the horns. 

The movement from Dalton began on the 12th of 
May. Polk's advance under Loring, and Polk him- 
self, reached Resaca from Deraopolis, Alabama, on 
the same day. French's division of the same army 
joined near Kingston several days later, and Quarles' 



41 

brigade at New Hope Church on the 26th. One may 
be permitted to believe that Johnston incurred as 
large risk, as could be exacted of a soldier and a 
patriot, when he left the whole protection of his 
rear to the expected arrival of this much hurried 
reinforcement. The position taken at Resaca to 
meet the movement through Snake Creek Gap was 
made untenable, in consequence of a similar move- 
ment by Sherman towards Calhoun— the last move- 
ment being covered by a river, as the former was b}^ 
a mountain. But the ground in the neighborhood 
of Cassvilie seemed to Johnston favorable for at- 
tack, and as there were two roads leading southward 
to it, the probability was that Sherman would divide 
— a column following each road — and give Johnston 
his opportunity to defeat one column before it could re- 
ceive aid from the other. He gave his orders accord- 
ingly for battle on the 19th of May. The order an- 
nouncing that battle was about to be delivered had 
been read to each regiment and received with exulta- 
tion. The Roman signal — the general's purple man- 
tle lifted in front of the general's tent — may be said 
to have been given. • But General Hood, owing to 
information received from one of his staff, deemed 
himself justified in not executing the order to him- 
self ; and the intended attack was for this cause, 
abandoned. General W. W. Mackall was sent to 
Hood to ask why he did not attack as ordered. 
Hood sent word in reply, that the enemy was then 
advancing upon him by two roads, and he could 
only defend. Johnston then drew up his army, on 
a ridge immediately south of Cassvilie, to receive 
the attack of the now united columns; but the 



f 



conviction of both Polk and Hood of their inability 
to hold their positions against attack caused John- 
STOx to yield his own. He did this upon the ground 
that he could not make the tight, when two of the 
three corps commanders of his army were opposed to it. 
Hood said that, in the position in which he then was, 
he was willing to attack, but not willing to defend. 
Joiii^SToy's view was, that the time to attack was 
when his enemy was divided, and the time to draw 
together and defend was when his enemy was united. 
But unless we are to reason, that when Johnston 
was unwilling to fight, and some of his generals will - 
ing, Johnston must be wrong ; and when Johnston 
was willing to light, and his generals unwilling, the 
latter must be right ; it is hard to see why he should 
be blamed for Rocky Face, and they uncriticised for 
Cassville. Assuredly in both instances the hesita- 
tion was the honest doubt of courageous men. 
Again, at New Hope Church, after Sherman's deter 
mined but vain assault, Johnston made his own dis- 
positions to attack. Hood was to assail Sherman's 
left, at dawn, on the 29th of May, and Polk and 
Hardee to join in the battle successively. At 10 a m. 
Hood reported that he found the enemy entrenched 
and deemeditinexpedienttoattack, without fresh in- 
structions. The opportunity had passed. The prop 
osition had originally come from Hood, and received 
the sanction of Johnston. Hood says the opportu- 
nity had passed, not because his views had changed, 
but because the situation of the enemy had changed. 
Doubtless this was so. And might not the com- 
mander in-chief of that army be permitted to assign 
the identical reason for his own change of plan at 
Rocky Face ? 



43 

At New Hope Church, at Kennesaw Mountain, all 
that fierce attack could do was tried and found want- 
ing. As the attack was resolute, so the repulse was 
bitter. If there was no such repulse, as at Fred- 
ericksburg, Spottsylvania and Cold Harbor, it must 
have been owing to the fact that there was no such 
attack — persistent as Sherman's undoubtedly were. 
In JoH]N"STO]sr's view, between Dalton and the Chatta- 
hoochie, the 19th and 29th of May, offered the only 
opportunities to give battle, without attacking the 
preponderant force in entrenchments. But Cassville 
he considered his greatest opportunity. 

From Resaca to Atlanta might be called a siege in 
open held — daily approaches and resistances, daily 
battle, so received, as to make the losses to the assail- 
ant more than treble those of the defensive forces. 
Sherman's progress was at the aate of a mile and a 
quarter a day. Every day was a warlike exercise. 
In the warfare of attrition, at this rate of prog- 
ress, battle could ere long be given upon equal terms. 
The advancing army found, in the wake of that re- 
treat, no deserters, no stragglers, no muskets, no ma- 
terial of war. Retreat resembles victory when it is 
the assailant who is chiefly worn by the advantageo-us 
battle of each day. Think for an instant of this 
single achievement, that in all the difficulty of the 
time, in the imminent breach of daily battle, John- 
ston's troops did not miss a meal from Dalton to 
Atlanta; that the primitive prayer: "Give us this 
day our daily bread," was punctually answered out 
of the smoke and roar of unremitting war — that too 
when not only the nutrition of life but the nutrition 
of death was scant; when he had to be parsimonious 



44 

of ammunition in Ids skirmishes, in order to be sure 
of it for his general engagements. He swung his 
armj' ni)on its hinges \\ itli the smoothness of well- 
oiled machinery, whii-h no more swerved from its 
appointed course, than do the forces of nature, be 
cause a campaign of death reigns all around. We 
seem to touch the pulse of destiny itself, as we ac- 
company that regular throb of recoil and repulse, 
and that still flexure of sockets about a pinion of 
resolve that knew no turning. 

Johnston felt himself daily growing stronger 
against an adversary daily growing weaker. Tire 
less in his vigilant activity, clear in his purpose, 
every tactical, every strategic advantage was hourly 
on his side. No jeopardy stole u])on him unawares. 
With a deadly precision, he divined and repelled 
every adverse stroke. He handled his army as a 
man would the lingers of his own hand. As link by 
link he unwound his resource as of magic, and his 
determination as of steel, it was like the movement 
of the hand of time on the face of a clock — so im- 
])erturbable, so infallible, so inflexible, the external 
calm, the unhasting certainty. It was as if one 
fate had been found to confound another. The weak 
place in the joinings of his mail was nowhere found. 
Every blow had rebounded from him, or was parried 
by him. Every material prei)onderance had been 
lebnked by a general's intuition and a hero's sword. 
We can almost see the lion-like glare of his war-like 
eye, and the menacing lash of his agile movement, 
as rampart by rampart he retired, his relative force 
rising with each withdrawal, and his united living 
wall making his earthen wall invincible. 



45 

Missionary Ridge had made this Johnston's mis- 
sion — to draw his adversary from his base and 
therebj^ compel the reduction of the force in front, 
by the regular growth of that required to guard the 
rear of each remove; to move back with such assured 
precaution, as never once to be surprised, nor i^laced 
at disadvantage; to skilfully dispute each foot of 
ground, with the least exjjenditure of his own 
forces; to thus more and more reduce the dispar- 
ity existing; and warily biding his time to beckon 
his adversary forward, until the field of his own 
choice was made the final arbiter between them. 
And now the justifying proportions and the coigue 
of vantage had been won. All that executive fore- 
sight could do had been achieved. Here he would 
meet his foe, face to face, on ground which would 
equalize numerical odds. At Daltoii, Johnston 
was a hundred miles from his base. At Atlanta it 
was Sherman who was so separated. The fortresses 
which, at Dalton, Sherman had in Ringgold and 
Chattanooga, Johnston now had in Atlanta — a 
place too strong to be taken by assault and too ex- 
tensive to be invested. To this end Atlanta had 
been fortified and Johnston had manoeuvred. 

Now he would lay down the buckler and part the 
sword from its sheath. Now he would constrain 
fortune. Noav, by his perfect sinews, he would ^fl^st 
the battle wreath, which the cunning fiend had so 
long withheld by sinister touches on his thigh. 

From Dalton to Atlanta, Sherman, by force of 
numbers, had been able to follow every retreat of 
the Confederate forces developed in their front, and 
then, with one or two corps, which he could afford to 



46 

spare, make a tiarik movement imperiling their posi- 
tion. Three railroads then supplied Atlanta. To 
take Atlanta, it would be necessary to take all three. 
On the 17th of July, Juhnston had planned to attack 
Sherman, as the latter crossed Peach Tree Creek, ex- 
pecting just such a division between his wings as Sher- 
man actually made. He had occasion to say this, and 
did say it, more than once, to his Inspector (reneral, 
Col. llarvie. To thus successively engage the frac- 
tions of the hostile army with the bulk of his own 
had been the ])urpose of his ever^^ movement. Suc- 
cess here would be decisive, he thought, by driving 
the defeated army against the Chattahoochie, where 
there were no fords, or to the east away from their 
communications. On the precipitous banks of the 
Peach Tree, the Confederate Army awaited the liour 
of battle. The superb strategy of their commander, 
and the superlative excellence of the position he had 
chosen, stood revealed. Joiixstox himself, with his 
chief of engineers, Col. Prestman, and his chief of 
staff. General W. W. Mackall, was seated at a table 
examining the ground upon the map, and maturing 
the plan of battle, when the order was delivered, 
relieving him from command. 

The goal had been reached, the victory organized; 
to his own vision the foe delivered into his hand 
when he was again struck down; but this time, not 
by a blow in the breast, which at Atlanta, as at Seven 
Pines, was turned to the enemy. With a command- 
ing grace in word and act, on tlie 17th of July he 
relinquished his command of the army, for which he 
had wrought so wisely and so well, and turned it 
over, with his plan of battle, to his successor, on that 
day appointed. 



47 

I deem it just to give verbatim the instructions ol" 
JoHNSTOiNr to his strong, stanch hero. Gen. A. P. 
Stewart. "Find," said. .joiiisrsTON to him, "the 
best position, on our side of Peach Tree Creek, for 
our arm}' to occupy. Do not intrench. Find all 
the good artillery positions, and. have them cleared 
of timber." He said that he exx)ected Sherman would, 
cross the Chattahoochie by the fords above the 
mouth of Peach Tree Creek, and advance across the 
creek upon Atlanta. He added that Governor Brown 
of Georgia had promised, to furnish him fifteen 
thousand State militia with which to hold Atlanta, 
while he operated with his army in the field. He 
did not say that he would attack Sherman on the 
crossing of Peach Tree, "but," says Stewart, "his 
dispositions were evidently made with a view to so at- 
tack, and were inconsistent with any other purpose." 
That evening Stewart rode to Johnston's head- 
quarters to report that he had made the dispositions 
according to direction. He was met by Johnston 
with the order for the latter' s removal. Stewart has 
since said: "I would cheerfully have suffered the 
loss of either of my own arms to have been able to 
retain Johnston in command." There could have 
been no purer ransom for his general's sentence than 
one of those stout arms. It was said by General 
Carter Stevenson, that he had never seen any troops 
in such tine discipline and condition as John- 
ston's army on the day he was removed from 
command. Constancy, stanchness, erectness, gov- 
erned by a true discernment, are the attributes 
that conquer men and events. All these attributes 
were with Johnston's army the day he was re- 



48 

niovprl. I]| tliey recked who changed that stead- 
fast camp for the meteor flash of mutability. 
The authorities who made this change would rathei- 
have been dismembered, limb from limb, than know- 
ingly to have done aught injurious to their cause. 
The motives for their action could be honest only, 
and were urged by pressure from without, which I 
doubt not was sincere. But to Johnston, and as I be 
lieve to history, it was as if tlie soldier, in his tent, 
had been stabbed by his own guard. 

With wounds to the body, Johnstox was famil- 
iar; but a wounded spirit who can bear ? How did 
he receive this by far his severest wound ? What 
was the fashion of the metal which emerged from 
this searching crucible i Did the equanimity which 
stood by him in every other turn of fortune desert 
him now ^ No, this did not desert him. His own 
unquailing spirit was faithful to him. If in the 
soldier's greatcampaign '' no unproi)ortioned thought 
took shape in act,'' so now, in his unwished fur- 
lough, none took shape in word. It is one of the 
prerogatives of greatness to know how not to be the 
sport of circumstance. Misfortune broke over him 
in vain. He broke misfortune by being unbroken 
by it. He was master of misfortune. The adversity, 
which does not shake the mind, itself is shaken. 
Nothing could be finer than JoirivsTox's demeanor 
in this, his unlooked for, and, to liim, unjust over- 
throw. Nothing froward, nothing unseemly shone 
in him or fell from him. He was one whom the ex- 
ternal universe might break, but could not bend to 
an ignoble use. His tall branch stood, like the sap 
of Lebanon, rooted in the real. There it stands to- 



49 

day, and will to-morrow. The forest of appearance, 
that has no root, falls to swift decay around it. 

I bestow no particular praisw on- one for following- 
conviction, albeit without the place proportioned to 
desert. A mercenary hero is a solecism. No one 
wins eminence by disregard of selfish interest in an 
army where it is universal. Virtue is tried by finer 
measures in that history. No corrui)t, no venal 
thing survives to tarnisli it. But of all adversity, 
there could be none more exquisitely fitted to freeze 
a noble heart, than that which befel the General of 
the West. How much easier to bear the most cruel 
blow of adversctries, when on either side are sustain- 
ing arms; when the strength of sympathy invests 
the overthrown with a dignity almost divine — the 
might of that incalculable arm which we call sympa- 
thy ! But when, to his own view, his own strong- 
hold is his worst hostility, when there is no sui)port- 
ing elbow within touch, as he looks out upon the 
hopes which can only ripen in his ruin, how clear 
in conscience, how tenancious and erect, in spiritual 
power and purpose, the dethroned must be to be un- 
vanquished ! The day of Johnston's dethronement 
was his imperial day. It was the empire of a soul 
superior to every weapon. 

The great campaign, by which he will be forever 
judged, is now beyond the wounds of the archers, 
beyond all slings and arrows, above and beyond out- 
rageous fortune. From the dark defile of Rocky 
Face to the large. prospect of Atlanta, it will be not 
only a possession, but a pattern for all time. Its 
rugged scenery is illuminated by the meaning with 
which the lines of greatness clothe the impassive 



50 

and the obdurate. It has been made the mirroi' of 
a great mind. The map of it, the more it is studied 
the more clearly ivill evince, in due expression and 
l^roportion, and colors ineffaceable, the lineaments 
of a giant. It will be a canvas bringing to light 
that surpassing victory, w^hich cancels adverse fate, 
and shines over it and throug-h it. 



It was upon a burning deck that Johnston was 
next summoned to the wheel. It was night when 
his star again began to burn. The Confederacy was 
in the article of death, when it once more sent for 
him, whose hand nowhere appears in the drawing of 
thatarticle. Johnston was sent for to repair the ruin, 
which he at least did not prepare ; to take anew the 
shattered remnant of that army, wrought into such 
firmness by him, shattered by others; but which, 
though shattered, was still firm to him. The Con- 
federacy lifted up its eyes, and beheld all that was 
left of the Army of Tennessee, tossing and drifting 
like seaweed in the Carolinas, and a voice which no 
authority could subdue was heard crying: '-AH that 
is left to us is Thermopylae. Oh, for a Johnston to 
stand there!" And a firm voice answered : "I will 
stand in the gap." The great gap he had to fill was 
the one which had been rent in his devoted files by 
futile battle. It was Thermopylje, not in the be- 
ginning, but at the end of warfare. W ith the portents 
of downfall all around him, his erectness was un- 
touched ; his plume was still a banner ; his name a 
talisman. The moral and military force, which had 



51 

been lost in Johnston, will be measured for all time, 
by the events of the interval, between his enforced 
abdication and patriotric resumption of command. 
The impending wreck of things rallied of its own 
^ ccord upon the disinherited knight. The hopes of 
which his downfall had been the pedestal were now 
themselves a ruin. Out of the lime pit of their de- 
struction, out of their crash and chaos, rose from the 
rejected stone the straightness of the Doric Column. 

At this time it was plainly Sherman's plan to 
march through the Carolinas to the rear of Lee. 
When the western army went to pieces in hopeless 
wreck, in front of Nashville, the one hope of the 
Confederacy was the defeat of Sherman, by all the 
forces which could be assembled in the Carolinas, 
united to those of Lee ; whenever the latter could 
most effectually withdraw from the lines at Peters- 
burg. Everything depended upon the success of this 
movement, and the subsequent union of the same 
forces against Grant. The task had sufficient ele- 
ments of difficulty as originally presented. Just at 
this time a new one was introduced. On the 14tli 
of January, Schofield had been ordered from Clifton, 
on the Tennessee River, to Annapolis. From this 
point he had been carried by w^ater to North Caro- 
lina, where he united to his own army the corps of 
Terry. 

From, the time Sherman left Atlanta every wave of 
opposition had calmed in his front. He could march 
to the sea or to the mountains as he x^^eased. The 
indications were that the mighty host, which had 
marched through Georgia in such comfort, would 
cross the Cape Fear at Fayetteville, to be joined 



52 

there by SclioHekl, when, on the 22d of February, 
1805 — the day he was restored to command — -John- 
ston was ordered " to conoentrate all avaihible forces 
and drive back SheiiiiMii.'" Tlie (irdci- was one less 
diflicnlt to give tlian to execute. It was a question 
on tlie lirst of March, which woukl reacdi Joiinston 
first, his own trooj^s from Charleston, or Sherman's 
army. Hardee did, indeed, cross the Pedee, at 
Cheraw, on the morning of the IJd, but his rear guard 
was so hard pressed, that it had hardl3^ time to de- 
stroy the bridge after passing over it. On the even- 
ing of the same da}% information was received that 
the broken columns of the Army of Tennessee had 
reached the railroad at Chester. Sherman's order 
of march encouraged the hope, that the tatters of 
the Confederacy might be gathered up in time to 
engage one of his wings. It was, however, not only 
Sherman, but Schofield, then marching up the Neuse 
Prom New Berne, with whom conclusions must be 
tried. 

It was under such conditions that Johnston ex- 
posed to the world the electric force and vivid light- 
ening of his arm. Here he gave the lofty answer, he 
scorned to make in words, to all who dared taunt 
him with want of daring. It should be some one, 
not less seamed over with honorable scars, who makes 
that charge. The battle furrowed chieftain might 
liave said: "Put your fingers in my wounds, all ye 
wdio doubt." But the heroic answer ever is in deeds. 
So answered the captain, "who careless of his own 
blood was careful of that of his men, who knew^ how 
to take 1 hem under fire and how to bring them out."'- 



Report of L. P. Wigfall in tlie Senate of the Confederate States, 
March 18(55. 



53 

From first mana'uvre to linal onset nothing can sur- 
pass the magnificent strategy he now displayed. It 
will have to blush befoi'e no other of the war or of 
the world. With decisiveness of command, which 
was met by celerity of execution, he at once ordered 
the movements which snatched, from the very jaws of 
death, the last Confederate victory. In the thrilling 
game of chess, wiiich he now played, no pawn was 
taken without his leave, while he darted forward 
and backward upon the board, each time giving 
check to the king. That game was played with the 
coolness and consummate skill of a master hand, 
which knew no pause, no tremor, no uncertainty, 
and only lacked the force of numbers, which genius 
could not create, to shine by the side of Austerlitz. 
It was the grand audacity of a conscious master, whose 
nerve- matched his skill; whose ministers were 
strength and swiftness. His first movement was 
with the troops of Bragg^i then near Groldsboro, 
added to those of D. H. Hill, just arrived from Char- 
lotte, to strike Schofield at Kinston. The blow was 
sufficient to scotch Schofield' s advance. 

Bragg' s troops and those of the Army of Tennes- 
see, were now ordered to Smithfield, mid waj^ between 
Raleigh and Goldsboro; it being at the moment un- 
certain through which of these places Sherman's 
route would be. Hardee was instructed to follow the 
road from Fayetteville to Raleigh, which, for thirty 
miles, is also that to Smithfield. On the 15th of 
March Hardee had reached Elevation on the road 
to Smithfield. On the 18th Hampton reported that 
Sherman was marching towards Goldsboro; the right 
wing on the direct road from Fayetteville had crossed 



54 

the Black Creek; the left on the road from Averys- 
boro had not reached that stream, and was more 
than a day's march from the point in its route op- 
posite to the hamlet of Bentonville, where the two 
roads according to the map of North Carolina were 
twelve miles apart. 

Upon this JoiiNSTox prepared to attack the left col- 
umn of Sherman's army before the other could sup- 
port it, by ordering the troops at Smithlield and at 
Elevation to marchimmediately to Bentonville (where 
the road from Smithlield intersected that from Fay- 
etteville to Goldsboro), to be in time to attack the next 
morning. By the map, the distance from Elevation 
to Bentonville was about twelve miles. In two impor- 
tant respects the premises of action proved incorrect. 
The distance between Sherman's forces was exagger- 
ated, and between his own reduced from the truth. 
Thereby he was prevented from concentrating in 
time to fall on one wing while in column on the 
march. The sun was just rising on that beautiful 
Sabbath in March, when all except Hardee had 
reached the point of rendezvous. The gap made by 
his absence, was for the time filled by the batteries 
of Earle and Halsey. 

On the way to the attack, and just in time for bat- 
tle, Johnston had met the shreds and patches of his 
old troops, under the stanch A. P. Stewart. The best 
interpreter of a General's strength is the sentiment 
with which he animates his rank and file. The wild 
enthusiasm of these Western troops, whenever they 
caught sight of their old chief, was in itself an in- 
spiration of success- It was evident that they were 
as conlident under him, as if they had never seen the 



55 

days whicli tore them into strips. They felt they 
had a general whose life or whose fame was as dust 
in the balance where his duty weighed; under whom 
death itself was not in vain. The force, which had 
been wedded to him by the campaign from Dalton 
to Atlanta, had not been put asunder by the Topliet 
of Tennessee. At last the way-worn troox)s under 
Hardee, which had marched day and night to Join 
battle, appeared upon the scene. The use for them 
was quickly revealed. All told, the torn remnants 
made an army of less than 15,000 men. At their 
head, JoHNSTOisr burst upon Sherman's left wing, 
with an electrical intensity which will live in military 
annals as an object-lesson to show how a wasted 
force is endowed by a general!? lire. The battle of 
Bentonville is that marvel — that final battle of the 
Confederacy which shed the last radiance on its arms 
as its candle flickered in the socket. 

The batteries which had held the g3.p were now 
told to follow the dark plume and bright courage of 
Walthall, who commanded all that was left of Polk's 
corps. Hardee led the charge of the right wing. 
With an annihilating fury, the hurricane of war 
swept Sherman from his first and second line, and on 
the 19th of Marchnight fell upon Johnston's vic- 
tory. Had there been no other column to reckon with, 
or had not the discrepancy existed between the map 
and the facts, the blow which staggered would have 
prostrated. The victor would then have turned to 
thiDw his whole army upon Schofield. As it was, on 
the 20th, the right wing of the enemy came up. 
On the 21st Sherman's united army was in position 
on three sides of Johnston. To oppose the increas- 



66 

ing coil the line ol" the hitter was bent into a horse 
shoe shape, the heel being the point of tlie one bridge 
left, the bridge at Bentonville over Mill Creek. 

The time had come for the man of resource to make 
his exit. Tt was essential to make the road over that 
bridge as secure as a turnpike in time of peace. He 
knew well how to do it, not with fear but with con- 
fidence. Once more he looked to Hardee to deal 
the blow he wanted. That intrepid man, first kiss- 
ing the pale lipsof his dyingboy, borne by liim on the 
field, turned to the nearest cavalry command, and 
assuring them he had been Captain of Dragoons 
himself, and knew how to handle cavalry, ordered a 
charge. On his magnificent black steed he led them, 
and poured their torrent on the opposing front — 
running back the skirmish line on the line of battle, 
and the first line on the second. Victory made 
the isthmus of contention safe. The nettle had been 
rifled of its danger. Then, with forces vastly more 
confident than when the fight began, Johnston with- 
drew with the loss of a single caisson, from between 
the jaws of death, by the one opening left. Like a 
whirlwind he came, and like an apparition departed. 
Under arduous conditions, he had set upon a hill 
that most admired faculty of man — the faculty to 
seize and to use opportunity. At his side hung the 
weapon — drawn from a great general's arsenal — the 
energy to fuse the fickle conditions of an instant into 
the bolt of victory. • 

One may be permitted to believe that, with a nat- 
ural sense of vindication, he had, in this wnrrior 
fashion, and with a warlike grace, inscribed upon 



57 

the record of ttie time the quality of his arm; and 
with it the reasonable proof, that if the Johnston 
at Atlanta had not been removed, history would 
have engraved for him the epitaph : 

"Unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem." 

One who saw him, writes*, "As he listened to the 
receding fire of the foe, the brightness of his eye 
showed the satisfaction with which he looked on the 
restored spirits of his old comrades in arms ; and I 
was touched by the affectionate manner i-n which he 
ministered to the comfort of, and the words of cheer 
which he gave to a number of wounded men who 
were carried by. I could then well understand the 
affection which was demonstrated by them at every 
sight of him." 

In 1875, Sherman wrote: "With the knowledge 
now possessed of his small force, I, of course, com- 
mitted an error in not overwhelming Johnston's 
army on the 21st of March, 1865." It was the as- 
cendancy of the few over the many. In the last 
ditch Johston's victory had been won — when there 
was little left beyond the field he had filled with his 
valor. His cynical fate poured all its craft into this 
last scoff, which left the truth illustrious when it 
could no more avail a perishing cause. It was as if 
his brow were torn with a mock crown at last. 

Sherman now moved on to Goldsboro and effected 
the junction with Schofield, which could no longer 
be prevented. 

Johnston marched to the vicinity of Raleigh, and 



* Capt. Wm. E. Earle. 



58 

disposed his troops, so that Sherman could not go 
forward to Virginia, without exposing his flanks ; 
while at the same time he placed himself so as to facili 
tate his junction with Lee, whenever the time should 
come to unite once more the two, who rode into Vera 
Cruz together, for their last salutation of devoted 
valor. The respect, which these successive revela- 
tions of resource and energy excited, is, perhaps, 
illustrated in the terms which, on the 18th of April, 
Sherman accorded to JoirNSTON ; and which, had 
they been ratified, would have saved the south the 
sorrow, and the North the shame — of the Reconstruc- 
tion Era. The current of events chose otherwise; but 
once more Johnston did all that sagacity could do to 
stem the current. To the last there was no spot upon 
his breastplate which his adversary' s steel had pierced ; 
none which there was undue eagerness to challenge. 
From crown to sole he blazed in complete proof. • 
At the end, his line was an undefeated and unbroken 
line. When the Great Umpire threw down his 
warder, the defense of North Carolina, covered with 
dust and bloody sweat, was standing with firm- 
planted feet against assault. There it was standing 
when the edifice. of the Confederacy fell — the last 
wall of its strength. It was bearing aloft its en- 
signs, " torn but flying," when the earth under it 
opened Doubtless it is the spectacle of deeds and 
energies like these which caused the eloquent soldier, 
Colonel Edginton, to declare that the force and vi- 
tality of Johnston's character was like the ocean 
wave — not to be measured in time of storm, nor to 
be fairly estimated until rivalries have ceased. 



59 

« 

With the return of peace, Johnston was removed 
from the tield of duty wherein he was best fitted to 
win renown, and where he had woven the texture of 
a character as line as it was firm. For the most part 
his fine assemblage of endowments lay like a book 
within its clasp, or like a coal unkindled. Broken 
by intervals of important duty, for a quarter of a 
century, Johnston found himself doomed to a life 
of comparative inaction. There have been few to 
whom it could be more trying to take off the chariot 
wheels of life' s activity. Perhaps one of the hardest 
of the many trials of his patience was thus to loiter 
by compulsion on the way where he was wont to 
spur. To a breast, ever thrilling with the impulses 
of action, patience was made perfect by this last 
trial. Yet it were wrong to pass without a word 
the blessing Heaven did not deny him; the meet 
partaker of his puissance and his pang, who 
drank of the same cup with him, exalting and 
exalted by it ; who gave him truth for truth, and, 
under all the blows of time, a constancy fixed in 
heaven— that blessing which, however, the world 
might rock, was truer than the needle to the 
pole— the blessing of a wife's true heart. And 
when of this blessing, too, he was bereft, we all were 
witnesses to the chastening touch of a brave man's 
anguish; how sorrow falling upon a character of 
such strength and depth did not harden, but melted 
to a tender glory ; how the snows of his last years 
were irradiated by a soft, benignant light, as of sun- 
set on the Alps. This was the final forge in which 
the iron of his nature was softened to take a new 
existence and more exquisite temper. He was the 



(?0 

picture of the veteran,' sitting in the evening before 
his tent, all unbroken by the years which are so vpont 
to break. He was the even more splendid picture of 
an elevation which was not fortuitous, nor dependent 
upon fortune, as he sat, still erect, amid the ruins of 
his heart, and the storm of life and fate. 

So he lived amongst us, his upright, straightfor- 
ward, unaffected life. So, as he lived and moved, 
the shadows of the dark reaper deepened round him, 
until at last we saw him standing, on the confine of 
of the great night. In his 8oth year, there he stood, 
"worn, but unstooping." Nowhere could one see a 
countenance and frame, more worthy to declare — 

"The living will that shall endure 
When all that seems shall sulfer shock." 

One who came within the circuit of this sceptre of 
majestic age, might well pause to speculate whether 
the iron sleep could steal upon the lids, over which 
that iron will stood sentinel. He, too, could not be 
conquered until worn out by attrition. He could 
not be conquered then. The last foe of all he turned 
to meet, in the old knightly fashion, and wrung 
from him the final victory, wherein he who conquers 
self is conqueror of death*. Faithful son of the 
church, he received his death wound, too, in the 
breast. Before the Universal Conqueror he fell upon 
his unsurrendered shield. He fell like a soldier. 
Closing his eyes to earth, and opening them to 
Heaven, he gave his soul 

" Unto his Captain, Christ, 
Under whose colors he had fought so long." 

To this last Caj^tain, who heareth and absolveth, 



61 

his last report is banded. "There," he said, on his 
death bed to Dabney Manry, ''we shall surely meet." 
Ah, there ! In the light of that perfect eye which 
looks clean through appearance, and judges the real 
only ; there is his great appeal ! In those upper 
fields, where the venom of this earth is slain, its 
serpent crushed ; where no false balance is and no 
inadvertency; his clear spirit will join and be felt, 
where the mighty influences of time, purged of their 
dross, encounter, as the stars in their courses fight. 
On the bosom of the Infinite, he, too, is a star. In 
that last bosom, where the revenges of time are 
folded, earth's scarred warrior hath cleft a way to 
peace. 



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